1. Field of the Invention
The invention is in the field of construction, especially building industry, timber construction, furniture industry and mechanical construction and concerns a method of anchoring an anchoring element in an object of construction material, which object has a porous or structured surface, the object surface, into which the anchoring element is anchored, being of wood, a wood composite (such as chipboard, particle board, oriented strand board etc), cardboard, concrete, brick, plaster, stone (such as sandstone) or industrial hard foam, into which a liquefied material can penetrate under pressure. The invention also concerns a corresponding anchoring element to be anchored in an object, and a corresponding device.
2. Description of Related Art
Methods of anchoring connecting elements in an opening in a fibrous or porous building material with the aid of mechanical vibrations are known from publications such as WO 98/00109, WO 00/79137 and WO 2006/002569. According to these methods, a connecting element is placed in a prefabricated opening of the object or pressed against the surface of the object by a directed force, which in turn creates an opening. While a force acts upon the connecting element in the direction of an axis of the opening, the element is excited by mechanical vibrations. The connecting element comprises thermoplastic material at least on one surface, which comes into contact with the material of the object during this procedure. The energy of the mechanical vibrations is set to liquefy thermoplastic material in the area of a predetermined anchoring point by mechanical vibrations and to press it into the pores or surface structures of the object by pressure building up at the anchoring point between a wall of the opening and the connecting element, thus forming a most effective macroscopic anchoring.
There are situations however, in which anchoring of connecting elements by mechanical vibrations according to the state-of-the-art technology does not suffice or in which, e.g. due to limited accessibility of the opening, it is not possible to excite a known connecting element with sufficient vibratory energy to ensure a reliable anchoring by the known methods.